Apparatus for wire winding of tanks, tubes and the like



Sept. 20, 1960 .w. B. M LEAN E? AL 2,953,310

, APPARATUS FOR w IRE WINDING 0F TANKS, TUBES AND THE LIKE- Filed Nov.17, 1954 5 SheetS-Sheet 1 INVENTOR5 WILL/17M Malt 52/4 7. PERRY,

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APPARATUS FOR WIRE WINDING OF TANKS, TUBES AND THE LIKE Filed Nov. 17,1954 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTORE:

ATTORNEYS APPARATUS FOR WIRE} WINDING, OF TANKS, TUBES AND THE LIKEFiled .Nov. 17, 1954 v 5 Sheets-Sheet 3 INVENTOR5 BY ua rd ATTORNEYS2,953,310 I?atented Sept. 20 1 96 0,

APPARATUS FOR WIRE WINDING or TANKS,

' TUBl ISANDTHELIKE Filed Nov. 17, 1954, Ser. No. 469,502 7 2 Claims.(Cl. 242 -7) This invention relates to apparatus for wire winding oftanks, tubes and the like for the purpose of reinforcing and compressingthe walls thereof.

The distinction between tanks and tubes for the purpose of thisapplication is that normally tanks are too large to be rotated, theymustrest on their own foundation and the winding apparatus must travel.around it. A tube on the other hand is of such a size that it is moreconveniently wound by rotating it on its axis as in a lathe or byrevolving it on rollers as in certain types of circular dryers. Thewinding apparatus paying out the wire will then .be fixed. The relativemotion is the same in each case and the improvements hereinafterdescribed could be applied to either with slight modifications in,detail.

The invention consists essentially in the provision of a self-containedapparatus which when properly adjusted for speed of travel and fortension of wire will operate to wind a wire spirally or in any otherregular pattern on the wall of a tank or tube at a predetermined spacingor pitch, of spiral: at the tension required, and in which; so long asthe drive is applied and the wire payed out, the operation of windingwill continue automatically.

The tension and stretching of the wire is obtained by means of a novelstretching device wherein the wire is gradually stretcher over aconsiderable length rather than locally as in a dieor direct frictionbrake. The longitudinal stretching resulting in a more uniform qualityofwire which, in conjunction with the, tension control, can be wound ona tank at considerable, higher "speeds than, is atpresent permissibleand with less of breakage of the wire. f 1

One form of the apparatus hereinafter described in greater detail,consists of a winding unit completelyselfcontained, which can be mountedon or at the side of tanks of varying character. It com-prises a maincolumn supporting or carrying a. prime mover of any desired or' suitabletype. The prime mover drives the winding unit around the wall of thetank and the tensioning is effected by the drag of the wire payed out asthe apparatus is rotated about the tank.

Theapparatus includes .a drive engine whichis directly coupled to awheel which rides on the upper surface of the tank to drive the windinguni-t around the tank. The drive engine is also coupled with a sheaveupon which the wire is wound so that the wire is payed out from the coilover the sheave to the tank. As the engine drives the wheel to move theapparatus around the periphery of the tank,the sheave will also berotated to pay out a given amount of wire. By suitably selecting thediameters of the drive wheel and the sheave and the drive ratio be tweenthese two rotatable members, it can be seen that the apparatus canbeadjusted so that for a given movement of the apparatus around the tank,less wire will be payed out and consequently the wire must be stretchedand tensioned in order to compensate for the dilterence in peripheraldistance travelled by the drive wheel and adjusted so as to slip in theevent that excessive tension is createdin the wire. a

The apparatus for wire winding of tanks disclosed herein possessesanumber of advantages over prior art devices designed fora similarpurpose. The primary advantage in this apparatus is that a uniformtensioning throughout the length of the wire is assured. The 'desiredtension may be predetermined by preselecting the diameters of thedriving wheel and the sheave and presetting the drive ratio betweenthese two elements and by adjustment of the slip coupling. Once theseadjustments are made, assurance is given that the correct tensioning-will be uniformly applied throughout the spiral winding. Furthermore,the presently disclosed apparatus requires less power for operation thansimilar prior art devices.

A primary object of the invention is: to provide an apparatus fortensioning wire to strengthen and compress the walls of tanks or tubeswherein the wire is uniformly tensioned throughout the length thereof.

. A further object of the present invention is to provide an apparatusin which a minimum power is used to tension wire on a tank with aminimum degree of friction losses.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide a wirewinding device which is adaptable to .any diameterof tank and which canbe made readily adjustable to suit any variation in wire size and degreeof tenpling bet-ween the drive engine and sheave which can be sionrequired. I a

These and other objects will be more readily understood from thefollowing, detailed specification of which the following drawings are apart.

Fig, 1 is :a vertical elevation looking of the apparatus; a

Fig. 2 is a vertical elevation looking on the side of the apparatus andshowing it mounted on the wall of a t Fig 3 is a plan view of theapparatus showing the main drive and the self-aligning guide wheel;

Fig. 4 isa partial sectional detail of the slip. coupling assembly andshowing the two drive sprockets;

' Fig. 5 is a side view of the tension-ing and stretching device;

V, Fig. 6 is a fragmentary enlarged sectional detail of a tensioningandstretching sheave showing the step-bystep enlargement of thediameters ofthe grooves;

Fig. 7 is a sectional detail of the apparatus on the line 7--7 of Fig. 1showing the mounting of the sliding carriage in the apparatus; and a(F.ig. 8 is a diagrammatic illustration ofthe apparatus showing theessential elements only and the drive connections to andfrorn theseelements. I

Referring to the drawings, the main tramework of the device consists ofa ventical column 1 of suitable section and strength to support theworking equipment tobe mountedon it and to take care of the stressesimposed upon it under maximum working conditions. Secured. tothercol-umn l at a position near its top is the horizontal workingplatform 2 (Fig. 3) which is sufficient in area to have in-ountedon -i-ttheprime mover 3, which can be of any suitable type and is hereinafterreferred. to as the drive engine. The platform is suitably braced to themain column :by the brace 4. i

As shown in Fig. 2 of the drawings, the vertical column 1 is supportedon the top of the side wall of a tank 11 through the flanged drive wheel5 running on the rail ,6 concentric with the wall of the tank '11. .Thedrive wheel 5 is keyed to the shaft 7 supported in the head of thecolumn 1 and is driven by the chain Sand sprocket 9 'from the reductiongear unit 10 which in turn is directly connected to the drive engine 3.While the top end of'the column 1 is supported on the top of in thefront face the tank, the bottom end of the column 1 is held parallelwith the wall of the tank 11 and in spaced relation thereto by means ofthe guide wheels 12 supported on the horizontal transverse bracket 13.The above described structure forms the complete working base for theself-contained wire winding apparatus. The flanged drive wheel insuresthat once the unit is placed on the rail track it will remain thereonand will be constrained to run on the rail at all times. However, inorder to insure that the wheel 5 and the column structure 1 will nottwist about the axis of the column when the drive is applied, a guidewheel 14 (Fig. 3) is pivotally fitted in the end of the boom 15 which inturn is pivoted on the horizontal platform 2 at a point 16. A guide bar17 limits the horizontal travel of the boom 15 and supports itvertically, but within this limit the guide wheel can be aligned on therail 6 over a wide range of diameters of rail track and diameter oftank. While the above description concerns a unit suspended from the topof a tank, the complete unit could as before mentioned be reversed andthe rail be on the ground and requiring only a simple guide Wheel at thetop of the tank; also another such guide wheel could run on the insideof the tank wall 11, or a pivoted structure mounted in the center of thetank could guide the column 1 around the tank.

Having now described the base unit and the manner of its mounting on atank, the details of the drive to the wire and the means to stretch andtension the wire, together with the means for setting the pitch ofpayout of the wire on the tank will be described in detail. As abovedescribed, the drive from the engine 3 is through the reduction gearunit 10 to the chain 8, sprocket 9 and to the shaft 7. The shaft 7 isprovided with a second sprocket wheel 58 which drives the sprocket wheel18 through the drive chain 19. This sprocket wheel 18 is keyed to theinner half 21 of the friction coupling 20. Sprocket wheel 18 and theinner half of the friction coupling are rotatably journaled on a shaft23 which is mounted in bearings on the column 1. The shaft 23 is rigidlyconnected with the outer half 22 of the friction coupling 20. Thecoupling 20 can be of any suitable type and is here shown as being ofthe friction plate type wherein the amount of friction between theplates may be adjusted by adjustment of the screws 24. Thus, under lightload conditions sprocket 18 will drive the inner half of the couplingwhich will in turn drive the outer half of the coupling and shaft 23.Under excessive load conditions on shaft 23 the inner and outer portionsof the coupling will slip.

As shown in Fig. 2 the shaft 23 has a sprocket 25 keyed to the outer endthereof. This sprocket drives a sprocket 26 through chain 28. Journaledon column 1 is a shaft 27 having sprocket 26 keyed on one end thereofand sheave 36) on the other end. A second shaft 29 is journaled incolumn 1 below shaft 27 and is provided with a sheave 31 rigidly mountedon one end thereof and gear 37 keyed to the other end.

The sheaves 30 and 31 are provided with grooves 60 as clearly shown inFig. 5. These grooves are of constantly increasing diameter for apurpose which will become more fully apparent hereinafter.

The gear 37 engages a gear 38 journaled on shaft 39 which has a sprocket40 mounted on the other end thereof as shown in Fig. 1. This sprocketdrives shaft 47 through chain 41, sprockets 42 and 44 mounted on shaft43, chain 45 and sprocket 46. Shaft 47 has gear 48 fixed to the oppositeend thereof as shown in Fig. 2 and this gear drives shaft 52 throughdrives 49, 5t and Mounted on shaft 52 is a spirally grooved pulley Asshown in Fig. 7, column 1 is provided with a plurality of rollers 59which are disposed along the length thereof to support frame 36 forvertical sliding movement therein. The frame 36 has a plurality of armsfixedly mounted thereon on which are rotatably mounted pulleys 35. Itcan be seen in Fig. 2 that there are provided three such rollers 35.Rigidly secured to each end of the vertically movable frame 36 is a rope54 and this rope 54 is wound around the spirally grooved pulley 53 asshown. It can be seen that rotation of the pulley 53 will cause verticalmovement of the frame 36 with its pulleys 35.

Mounted on the column 1 adjacent the sheaves 30 and 31 is a brakingdevice 34 which comprises a plurality of friction blocks through whichthe wire passes. The coil of wire 33 is rotatably mounted on thesupporting column and the wire passes from this coil through the brakingdevice 34 and is wrapped around the sheaves 30 and 31 in such a mannerthat the wire passes from the coil first over the smaller diameters onthe sheaves onto the larger diameters on the sheaves. The wire is thenfed over the guide pulleys 35 as shown in Figs. 1 and8 and is payed outfrom these pulleys onto the tank which is to be wound by the wire.

The wire winding apparatus disclosed herein is operated in the followingmanner. The wire on the coil is fed through the braking device, over thesheaves and through the outlet pulleys 35 in the manner previouslydescribed. The end of the wire is then anchored on the tank. The driveengine 3 is then energized to cause the drive wheel 5 to traverse theupper periphery of the tank. Simultaneously, the drive motor will rotatesheaves 30 and 31 to pay out the wire 32. The diameters of drive wheel 5and sheave 30 and the drive connection between the motor 3 and sheave'30 are such that the length of wire payed out is not as great as thedistance traversed by the wheel 5. Consequently, the wire is stretchedand tensioned automatically as the apparatus moves forwardly. The brake34 provides a snubbing action on the sheaves 30 and 31 in order toprevent the wire from simply slipping around the sheaves. Theoretically,it would be possible to use a single sheave but it has been found inpractice that a more uniform action is assured through the use of thepair of sheaves having increasing diameters. It is apparent from Fig. 1that the tension in the wire 32 will tend to rotate the sheaves in thesame direction as the motor 3 tends to turn these sheaves. Thiscomponent of the tension in the wire brings about a reduction in theamount of power required to operate the apparatus. That is to say, lesspower is required to wind a tank with wire at a given tension with thepresently disclosed apparatus than with similar devices in whichfriction blocks or the like are used to produce the tension.

Theoretically, it would be possible to provide an apparatus in which thedrive ratio between the sheave and drive wheel and the diameter of theseelements could be so related as to predetermine the exact tensionproduced in a line for a given tank. Assuming a perfectly shapedstructure, this tension would be uniformly applied throughout the lengthof the wire. However, as a practical matter, tanks are not perfectlyshaped and certain areas will have diameters which may varyconsiderably. Consequently, the diameters of the drive wheel and thesheave and the drive connections between these elements are so relatedas to produce a tension greater'than that desired. The friction coupling20 is then set to slip at the desired final tension and thus, assuranceis given that the wire will be uniformly tensioned even though thediameter of the tank varies within rather large limits. As the wiretraverses the tank over an area of normal tank diameter or over an areaof greater than normal tank diameter, the friction coupling 20 will slipto prevent greater tension than that desired whereas in areas of lessthan normal tank diameter the coupling will slip to a lesser degree orperhaps will not slip at all.

As the wire is payed out over the pulleys 35 these pulleys are beingmoved upwardly by vertical movement of the column 36 through the driveconnection between pulley 53 and rope 54. When the lowest pulley 35moves upwardly to the point where the second lowest pulley wasoriginally located, the apparatus is stopped and the wire 35 is anchoredto the drum and removed from the lower pulley 35. The column 36 is thenlowered to its original position and the wire is passed over the secondpulley 35 and the operation is resumed. Thus, the wire may be spirallywound around the tank Without the need for a lead screw of a lengthequivalent to the height of the tank. It can be appreciated that thedrive connection to the pulley 53 may be varied so as to produce anydesired rate of vertical ascent of column 36 in relation to the forwardmovement of the apparatus around the periphery of the tank. If thediameter of the tank be large, then the drive to the sliding carriage 36will be slower than if the diameter of the tank is small. The larger thediameter of the tank, the longer it will take for the sliding carriageto travel the single pitch step required for the proper laying of thewire on the tank Wall.

Obviously, there are other factors which are considered in making thevarious adjustments in order to produce the desired tensioning in thewire. Such factors include the modulus of elasticity of the wire and thesize of the wire utilized. Such factors are obvious to those skilled inthe art and it is not believed necessary to set forth such detailsherein. It will be evident, however, that the presently disclosedapparatus may be readily altered to suit various operationalrequirements Without in any way afiecting the basic principles involvedin providing a structure for creating uniform tension.

Obviously, many modifications and variations of the present inventionare possible in the light of the above teachings. What is claimed as newand desired to be secured by Letters Patent is:

1. An apparatus for winding, stretching and tensioning a reinforcingwire around the outer circumferential surface of a cylindrical objectcomprising a frame vertically disposed adjacent the outercircumferential surface of the object, a driving wheel mounted on saidframe and engaging the upper surface of said cylindrical object, a guidewheel mounted adjacent the lower edge of said frame and engaging theouter circumferential surface of the object, said driving wheel and saidguide wheel constituting the sole supporting means for said frame on theobject, drive means connected with said driving wheel for driving saidframe around the outer surface of the object, a wire stretching deviceincluding a wire reel mounted on said frame and at least a pair ofsheaves, the wire from the reel being passed around the sheaves and ontothe cylindrical object, said sheaves having a plurality of groovestherein of diameters increasing from the groove over which the wire fromthe reel is threaded to the groove from which the wire passes to thecylindrical object whereby the wire is uniformly tensioned by said pairof sheaves, a driving connection including an adjustable slip clutchbetween said drive means and one of said sheaves, said drivingconnection including means for rotating said one sheave to pay outlengths of wire less than the distance that the rotation of the drivingwheel moves the frame around the cylindrical object to further tensionthe wire, and means for spacing the turns of the wire uniformly over thesurface of the object, said last-named means being driven by rotation ofthe other of the sheaves by movement of the wire as it is payed out ontothe cylindrical object.

2. An apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said last-named meansincludes a carriage slidably mounted on said frame and a plurality ofguide pulleys spaced on said carriage, the wire being selectively laidover each of said guide pulleys as the sliding carriage is advancedalong the frame.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS2,370,780 Crom Mar. 6, 1945 2,464,536 Solliday et al Mar. 15, 19492,520,403 Hirsh Aug. 29, 1950 2,524,439 Green Oct. 3, 1950 2,640,663Leland June 2, 1953 2,711,291 Kennedy June 21, 1955 2,785,866 Vogt Mar.19, 1957

